Semester Update

Reading Challenge Check In

Hip! HIP! Hooray! I have kept up with my reading challenge.  I have read from both the Banned and Challenged List and Newbery award winners.  I wanted to take a minute and post a few books from the Banned and Challenged list that I read a few weeks ago and not yet added into my blog.

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

This fiction picture chapter book is on the banned and challenged list in multiple schools. It is charged with teaching children to be deceitful and that the story does not build socially responsible character. It is also charged with teaching children to curse and to lie.
This is classic picture book that was originally published in an era that fueled racial tensions. This book has many curse words and has projections of smoking, drinking and racial remarks.
The main characters in this book are a variety of garden animals and boy named James. James is an orphan taken in by his two abusive Aunts who are smashed to death by the peach.
The giant size peach created by a magic potion serves as the transportation to a new life. James and his friends are seeking a new life and find it when they arrive in America form Europe. All through the story there are conflicts and adventure. The adventure can been felt when you read about Cloud Men and how they build rainbows. It is also a treat to read the how Mr. Short Horned Grasshopper makes music with his body to entertain his friends. Climax falls when the peach lands on the Empire State Building and everyone is rescued and they begin a new life

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

This book is the banned and challenged list it is charged with being affiliated with Nazism.  Additionally, it is banned in several institutions and in Europe because the character, Piglet is said to be on offense to Islam.  Other charges in the United States say that that similar to the view of Muslims, the characters or rather talking animals are offensive to the Christian God.
In this story a Tree loves a boy and boy loves the tree they are the two characters as well. The setting is hard to decipher but it is in a forest far removed from others. The tree offers a place for fun as the boy is young and as the boy grows older the tree offers apples to the boy so that he can make money that he is seeking. The tree was happy when it was able to provide for the boy. In the end the boy was an old man and the tree thought it had nothing more to provide but instead found that her stump offered an appreciated resting place. The boy was appreciative and the tree was happy.

Also, on the Banned and Challenged list I found this NOT child appropriate book. Now if it belongs on the list or not is not for me to say of course.  I am posting this book here only because the cover got me initially, the cover said, “for kids” to me anyway, so I started the read… I wanted to share that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, ever!

I am going to need to modify my challenge a bit so that I can reach the 250-book mark by the end of the semester.  So, I will keep reading as many Banned and Challenged and/or Newbery winning books as possible but it may be less that one per week so that I can I dive into more children’s books.  Most inviting to me is the list of wordless picture books that Dr. Ellington shared.

Hope you all have a Sunny Saturday and I will blog you on Monday!